the bag with its ripped lining on top of the pile of her clothes and spat again.
‘Nothin’.’
Phoebe prayed a coach would pass, but the road ahead remained resolutely empty and there was silence all around. ‘I did tell you,’ she said. ‘Now if you would be so kind as to let me pass on my way.’ She held her head up and spoke with a calm confidence she did not feel. Inside her heart was hammering nineteen to the dozen and her stomach was a small tight knot of fear. She made to step towards the bag.
‘Tut, tut, darlin’, no’ so fast.’ The black-masked highwayman caught her back with an arm around her waist. ‘There’s a price to pay to travel this road, and if you’ve nae money and nae jewels …’ His gaze dropped lower to the bodice of her dress and lower still to its dusty skirt before rising again to her face.
Phoebe felt her blood run cold. ‘I have nothing to give you, sir, and I will be on my way.’
He laughed at that. ‘I think I’ll be the judge of that, hen.’ He looked at Phoebe again. ‘I’ll hae a kiss. That’s the price to continue on your way.’
She heard the other man snigger.
The villain curled his arm tighter and pulled her closer. The stench of ale and stale sweat was strong around him. ‘Dinnae be shy, miss, there’s no one here to see.’
‘How dare you, sir? Release me at once. I insist upon it.’
‘Insist, do you?’ The highwayman pulled his mask down and leered at her to reveal his discoloured teeth. It was all Phoebe could do not to panic. Vying with the fear was a raging well of fury and indignation. But she stayed calm and delivered him a look that spoke the depth of her disgust.
He laughed.
And as he did she kicked back as hard as she could with her stout walking boots against his shins. He was not laughing then.
A curse rent the air and she felt the loosening of his hands. Phoebe needed no further opportunity. She tore herself from his grip, hoisted up her skirts and, abandoning her bag, began to run.
The man recovered too quickly and she heard his booted footsteps chasing after her. Phoebe ran for all she was worth, her heart thudding fast and furious, her lungs panting fit to burst. She kept on running, but the highwayman was too fast. She barely made it a hundred yards before he caught her.
‘Whoa, lassie. No’ so fast. You and I havenae yet finished our business.’
‘Unhand me, you villain!’
‘Villain, am I?’ With rough hands he pulled her into his arms and lowered the stench of his mouth towards hers.
Phoebe hit out and screamed.
A horse’s hooves sounded then. Galloping fast, coming closer.
Her gaze shot round towards the noise, as did the highway man’s.
There, galloping down the same hill she had not long walked, was a huge black horse and its dark-clad rider—rather incongruous with the rest of the sunlit surroundings. He was moving so fast that the tails of his coat flew out behind him and he looked, for all the world, like some devil rider.
Black Kerchief’s hand was firm around her wrist as he towed her quickly back to where his accomplice still stood waiting. And she saw that he, too, had pulled down his mask so that it now looked like a loose ill-fitting neckerchief. Jim grabbed her and used one hand to hold her wrists in a vice-like grip behind her back. She felt the jab of something sharp press against her side.
‘One sound from you, lady, and the knife goes in. Got it?’
She gave a nod and watched as Black Kerchief stood between her and the road, so that she would be obscured from the rider’s view as he sped past.
Please! Phoebe prayed. Please, she hoped with every last ounce of her will.
And it seemed that someone was listening for the horseman slowed as he approached and drew the huge stallion to a halt by their small group. Not the devil after all, but a rich gentleman clad all in black.
‘Step away from the woman and be on your way.’ Hunter spoke quietly enough, but in a tone that the men would not ignore if they had any kind of sense about them.
‘She’s my wife. Been givin’ me some trouble, she has,’ the taller of the men said.
Hunter’s gaze moved from the woman’s bonnet crushed on the grass by the men’s feet, to the neckerchiefs around the men’s collars, and finally to the woman herself. Her hair glowed a deep tawny red in the sunshine and was escaping its pins to spill over her shoulders. She was young and pretty enough with an air about her that proclaimed her gentle breeding, a class apart from the men who were holding her, and she was staring at him, those fine golden-brown eyes frantically trying to convey her need for help. He slipped down from the saddle.
‘She is no more your wife than mine. So, as I said, step away from her and be on your way … gentlemen.’ He saw the men glance at each other, communicating what they thought was a silent message.
‘If you insist, sir,’ the taller villain said and dragged the girl from behind him and flung her towards Hunter at the same time as reaching for his pistol.
Hunter thrust the girl behind him and knocked the weapon from the highwayman’s hand. He landed one hard punch to the man’s face, and then another, the force of it sending the man staggering back before the villain slumped to his knees. Hunter saw the glint of the knife as it flew through the air. With the back of his hand he deflected its flight, as if he were swatting a fly, and heard the clatter of the blade on the empty road.
The accomplice drove at him, fists flying. Hunter stepped forwards to meet the man and barely felt the fist that landed against his cheekbone. The ineffective punch did nothing to interrupt Hunter’s own, which was delivered with such force that, despite the villain’s momentum, the man was lifted clear off his feet and driven backwards to land flat on his back. The shock of the impact was felt not only by the accomplice, who was out cold upon the ground, but seemed to reverberate around them. The taller highwayman, who had been trying to pick himself up following Hunter’s first blow, stopped still and, as Hunter turned to him, all aggression evaporated from the scoundrel.
‘Please, sir, we were only having a laugh.’ It was almost a whimper. ‘We wouldnae have hurt the lassie; look, here’s her purse.’ The highwayman fished the woman’s purse from his pocket and offered it as if in supplication.
‘Throw it,’ Hunter instructed.
The man did as he was told and Hunter caught it easily in one hand before turning to the woman.
She was white-faced and wary, but calm enough for all her fear. In her hand she gripped the highwayman’s knife as if she trusted him as little as the villains rolling and disabled on the ground before him.
Hunter’s expression was still hard, but he let the promise of lethality fade from his eyes as he looked at her.
He held the purse aloft. ‘Yours, I take it?’
She seemed to relax a little and gave an answering nod of her head. The man must have taken it from her pocket while they were struggling.
He
